Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization

Are PPC and SEO equally important? I guess that depends on your strategy.

Time
PPC often gives you instantaneous results where as SEO takes time. If you are looking to get information out around the Superbowl, PPC would be your best bet seeing how the Superbowl is this Sunday. With PPC you are in control and can make changes immediately where as with SEO patience is key since sometimes it may take months to see results based on your efforts. Also keep in mind that optimization is also an ongoing effort, thanks to the dynamic nature of search engines.

Cost
Cost may play a crucial role in deciding whether to choose a PPC strategy or SEO strategy. SEO is expensive however the returns are often worth the investment since SEO can lead to free traffic where as with PPC you’re buying traffic continuously to see your site show up in the search engines keeping in mind that you're bidding on keywords that may be extremely competitive and therefore costly. Imagine typing in a keyword in Google and having your site come up number one, that’s huge exposure and traffic can be through the roof. You may pay a large investment up front however once you get to the top, you’re getting free traffic and exposure.

Maintenance
Both efforts take time however it’s the constant maintenance that proves its success. SEO is ongoing where with PPC it may take only a few hours to set up, however you still need to manage the campaign to get the traffic you want. Now that you’ve seen the pros and cons of both, is it choosing one or the other or choosing both to aid in your strategy, that's for you to decide.

Web 2.0: An Experience not just a Site

Web 2.0 is the future of online websites. Back in the day everything was box designs, no rounded corners for sites, just tables. With CSS becoming more of a standard, designers have now been given the chance to have a piece of art on the web and not just a site. Gradients, big fonts, rounded corners are all now becoming a standard on the web today. So you still might want to know what WEB 2.0 is?

Defined by Wikipedia
"The term Web 2.0 refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online. In contrast to the first generation, Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages. Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs (dating from 1998), Ajax (1998), and web syndication (1997). They often allow for mass publishing (web-based social software). The concept may include blogs and wikis."


So with Web 2.0 we as web designers/developers have a lot more options to work with such as, pop up boxes on images in our sites utilized for more information. Another big thing is definitely utilizing CSS to it's full potential which will give us a higher Keywords to Code ratio in the HTML. In short that means our sites are very SEO friendly prior to any keyword research/implementation.

The main points to remember about WEB 2.0 is our options: Colors, Gradients, Font Sizes and rounded corners. To learn more about these options check out some of the following links.

Rounded Corners
A List Apart

Gradients
Photoshop Lab

Colors
Icon Buffet

Big Text
Cork'd

Simple Steps for Search Engine Rank Improvement

Everyone knows that search engines are the starting point for most internet surfers with an objective to complete. With search bars embedded in most browsers or even as stand-alone desktop widgets, perusing these search engines is the only way many people can find the information or service that suits their needs.

By making sure your web site is search engine optimized through some simple steps, presented in an article by iMedia Connection, you can improve the chance that customer prospects will locate your site and, hopefully, convert into actual customers.

1) Brainstorm a list of keywords that you would associate with your business and its service offerings. Survey employees and customers to find what words pop into their mind first when they think about the company. Find news related to your product offerings and pull repeated words from here. Check out competitors' sites and note their headings, titles, etc. Also, make use of keyword services from search engine companies themselves, such as Google Analytics or Wordtracker.
2) Narrow down this list of keywords to find those that will cause conversion for your company. Pay attention to keywords that are heavily searched by many people. Always make sure the keywords you choose are appropriate for your company, relating to content and text actually on your site. Gauge the top sites that a keyword search reveals. If these sites are page-heavy with many incoming links, it may be difficult and expensive to steal the top spots.
3) Next, start planning long-term goals for the keywords most pertinent to your company. In order to optimize your site when competing against established sites for popular keywords, a great dedication of time and effort will be required. Put effort into the less competitive keywords to get a good base presence, and then concentrate on link-building and site expansion for the long road towards gaining rank with the first-rate keywords.
4) It’s important to optimize your web site structure to suit your goals. Use intra-site links that have text matching your keywords. Also pay attention to headings, title bars, and navigation as these all play a key role in ranking. Make sure to build friendly industry contacts to gain reputable incoming links.
5) Now that prospects can find your site, it is important that your site helps them accomplish the objective of their search. Make your site easy to navigate and full of resources and you will be converting prospects to customers in no time.

More Traffic, the Better

As many of us know, traffic inflation is on the rise in 2007 and it's not going to go down anytime soon. It’s hard to imagine but sometime soon online traffic will compete, if not exceed, off line advertising costs. For sites that do not show in organic rankings and therefore are not always visible to consumers, getting traffic to the site is of high importance in order to meet their goals of having a Web site. Those that do spend the money for traffic will be noticed and treated with respect. A few ways to add value to the traffic that does make it to your site is to treat these clicks as people as that is what they are representatives of. Consumers are coming to your site with a desire so updated content and calls to action are key. Make your site a place where users will want to spend some time on, just landing pages and ads galore won’t get you very far. Optimize and prepare for low cost traffic to end. Stay tuned for ways to generate short and long-term strategies for driving traffic.